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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb.8, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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"It was on Feb. 6, 1976, that law-enforcement officials arrested me in Canada. ...
"Twenty years later it is hard to believe that I am still here.
"It has been extremely frustrating knowing every passing day that I am innocent and can prove it. Your prayers, letters and actions are the key to my endurance.
"You make me see that the nightmare will surely end."
These are the words of Native political prisoner and American Indian Movement warrior Leonard Peltier. They will be heard in cities across the United States on Feb. 6 when people join picket lines outside FBI offices to protest Peltier's continued imprisonment.
The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee has called for a day of picketing and leafleting on Feb. 6 to get the word out about his case.
Bill May, a paralegal at the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, told Workers World on Jan. 26, "We already have 20 cities confirmed, and we expect to know of many more in the next two weeks" that will stage actions.
Peltier was wrongfully convicted in 1976 of shooting two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975. His trial was filled with manufactured evidence, intimidated witnesses and outright lies.
The FBI intentionally withheld evidence that would have proven Peltier's innocence. Its agents threatened witnesses into giving perjured testimony. And the FBI to this day continues to withhold over 6,000 pages of documents regarding the case.
Millions of people around the world know of Leonard Peltier's arrest, trial and false conviction. Millions have for the past 20 years demanded that he be freed. But even many of his supporters do not know the real reason the FBI started a fire fight on Pine Ridge Reservation on that day in 1975.
During the mid-1970s, in order to increase profits the oil companies created a so-called energy crisis. Big Oil faced the problem of smaller returns on its investments.
One priority for the oil companies was to get their hands on non-petroleum energy reserves, particularly uranium, in order to ensure that they would continue to make huge profits.
Some 80 to 85 percent of the known uranium reserves in the United States are located on reservation land still held by Native nations.
In fact, Native nations own such vast uranium reserves that if taken as a whole they would be the fifth biggest uranium-owning nation in the world.
And a big proportion of those uranium reserves are on and around Pine Ridge Reservation.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a corrupt federal agency that oversees Native reservations. Over the years, the BIA has signed over millions of acres of Native land to the energy companies--without the consent of the Native people involved.
The U.S. government knew that the Oglala Lakota nation of Pine Ridge would never allow any of its lands to be signed away without a fight. Washington especially wanted to crush the resistance of the American Indian Movement.
So the government installed a BIA puppet, Richard Wilson, as tribal-government chairman, and armed his goon squads to the teeth to terrorize the traditional people of Pine Ridge.
Dozens of Lakota people--women, men and children--were murdered by these goon squads.
On June 26, 1975, in Washington, without the knowledge or consent of the Lakota people, Richard Wilson signed one- eighth of the uranium-rich land of Pine Ridge over to the U.S. government and the energy companies.
On that same day, the federal government attempted to keep the eyes of the traditionals away from what was happening. As a diversionary tactic and without provocation, over 150 FBI agents attacked an American Indian Movement stronghold on Pine Ridge.
The assault resulted in the deaths of one Native man, Joe Stuntz--whose death was never investigated--and of two FBI agents. Leonard Peltier would be framed for shooting the FBI agents.
On Dec. 11, 1995, Peltier went before the federal parole board. At the hearing, the FBI said he should not be paroled because he has not admitted his guilt.
For 20 years, Peltier has steadfastly maintained his innocence. A clemency petition has been pending before Attorney General Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton for over two years now.
How long must Leonard Peltier wait for justice?
All people who support him must seize the day on Feb. 6 and picket their local FBI offices, demand the truth be told, and demand, in the spirit of Crazy Horse: "Free Leonard Peltier!"
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